Cavern of Secrets

by Linda Sue Park

  He decided to make the combination a powder; it would be easier to carry that way. By using every single pot and pan in the house, he was able to convert the entire stock of cavern plants. Then he mixed the residue with the other botanicals, and ground them together until he thought his arm would fall off. His skills might well be a little rusty, but he was quickly regaining his confidence: It felt good to be focused on apothecary work again.

  Kuma helped by fetching and clearing away. They ended up with a sack of powder, and set aside a small pouchful for Twig.

  With the antidote powder finished, Raffa attended to one more task: distilling the phosphorescent fungi so he could use their essence for lightsticks. He had made the fungi combination so many times that he could have done it in his sleep.

  “Aunt and Uncle should be back soon,” Kuma said. “They’ll be hungry.” She stirred up the mush on the stove.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something about them,” Raffa said. “You told me that they don’t care about you. I don’t understand—ever since we got here, they’ve been nothing but caring.”

  Kuma went still for a long moment, the wooden spoon in her hand forgotten. Then she shrugged. “You haven’t seen what it’s usually like. The children haven’t been here. It’s usually noisy and crowded and . . . and it’s obvious that they don’t need one more person around to worry about.”

  Raffa stared at her. Odd upon strange, he thought, that someone so sensitive to animals and other people could be so blind about her own life. He spoke gently. “Did you ever think that maybe they don’t want to get in your way? I think they know how much you love the Forest, and Roo, and they don’t want to interfere. That’s why they let you go off, and why they don’t ask you to explain yourself. Not because they don’t care, but because they do.”

  Another shrug. “I don’t know about that,” she said.

  Her voice was doubtful, but Raffa thought he saw a flicker in her eyes. Of hope, maybe, or at least interest. He decided not to press further.

  “Well, you might think on it,” he said lightly. “Anyway, I mustn’t forget to thank them. They’ve been more than welcoming to me.”

  Having finished extracting the fungi essence, he returned his thoughts to a more pressing problem.

  “We have to figure out a way to dose all the animals,” he said. “Maybe Trixin could help us. After that, we’ll go back to the gorge for Twig—”

  “What?” Kuma almost yelped. “What are you talking about?” She held up the little pouch. “I’m leaving to go to Twig right now!”

  Raffa frowned. “Kuma, you saw what happened here in your own settlement. The Chancellor is using the animals against people. Who knows when the next attack will be? We have to get to those animals now.”

  Kuma shook her head, her lips set in a straight line. “Going to the gorge first will only delay us a little—a couple of days at the most.”

  What was the matter with her? She clearly wasn’t thinking straight. “You said it yourself,” he replied. “People are going to go hungry here, and it could happen again and again unless we stop it! How can you put one single life ahead of hundreds?”

  “It’s not just Twig!” she snapped. “I’m thinking of Roo as well. Do you know how heartbroken she’ll be if Twig dies? That’s two lives—” She held up two fingers and thrust them toward him. “Two that I care about!”

  “‘Be kind to animals, kinder to people,’” Raffa retorted, quoting a familiar saying, one he was sure Kuma knew.

  “Don’t you dare,” Kuma said, her eyes blazing. “What if it were Echo? We left the Suddens because he was sick!”

  Raffa stiffened and goggled at her like a fish.

  She’s right, he thought.

  But he immediately began arguing with himself. No—it’s not the same! We don’t even know if Twig is sick!

  It didn’t matter. Just five words—What if it were Echo?—had changed how he felt.

  He swallowed. “Okay. You have to go. I see that now. But you know how hard it’s going to be in Gilden. I’ll need your help.”

  Kuma began collecting things to pack for her journey. “When you get there, you’ll have to find out what’s going on and make a plan,” she said. “I’ll be there in time to help. I want to free those animals, too, you know. As much as you do.” A pause. “Maybe more.”

  “When will you get there? Where will we meet?”

  “I—I’ll find Garith. Or Trixin. And I’ll get a message to you.”

  “Kuma, I—”

  All those months in the Suddens, living with her and Garith, never seeing another human soul . . . Garith was already gone. Now Raffa would be separated from Kuma as well, and he realized how much he had come to depend on her companionship.

  “What?”

  “Just come as quick as you can, okay?”

  Their eyes met for a solemn moment, and he knew that they understood each other.

  Elson and Haddie walked in. Haddie looked from Kuma to Raffa, apparently sensing the tension between them. “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Raffa and Kuma answered in unison.

  “Good,” Elson said. If he noticed anything amiss, he was choosing to ignore it, for he went on with some urgency. “Raffa, I’m sorry, but I think it best that you leave here tonight. Do you have somewhere you can go?”

  “Shakes and tremors, don’t frighten the lad!” Haddie admonished her husband. She bustled around the table and put her hands on Raffa’s shoulders. “We just heard that a fox was spotted earlier,” she said, “in the fields back of the settlement.”

  Raffa and Kuma exchanged a quick glance. The chances were better than good that it was their fox.

  “It’s got everyone wobbled,” Elson said. “They’re all on the lookout for foxes and stoats and crows.”

  “Oh, no!” Kuma cried out. “Did you tell them about the purple eyes? You have to tell them! They can’t go around hurting animals that are normal!”

  “I told them,” Elson replied. “And I’ll remind them again.”

  He paced the room in obvious agitation. “It was the loss of grain that did it—the fear about whether their families will have enough to eat. Fear on top of anger—a bad combination. Doesn’t leave any room for reason.”

  He turned to Raffa. “The fox that was just sighted, if someone manages to capture it, they’ll see its scars, and how well the fox has healed, and they’ll suspect you right away. And if it wasn’t your fox, are there more in hiding? Could there be another attack tonight? I don’t want you around here. I’m worried for your safety—that someone will do something worse than foolish.”

  It should have been all the same to Raffa—he needed to go anyway. But being forced to leave made him feel much worse than if he had chosen to do so freely.

  “I—I’m going on to Gilden,” he said, “but I’m going to the pother settlement first.”

  “I’ll take you part of the way in the wagon,” Elson said. “It’s the least I can do, to make up for being so inhospitable. But I’ll need to be back in time for our turn on watch.”

  “I’m leaving, too,” Kuma announced, “as soon as our watch shift is over.”

  “Oh, Kuma, we only just got you back!” Haddie said in dismay. “Must you go?”

  “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to,” Kuma said. “I promise that if it’s within my powers, I won’t be gone as long this time.”

  Haddie sighed. “I don’t like it. Not one bit. With all that’s happening around here . . . Is it that bear again?”

  “No,” Kuma answered. “It’s a raccoon. A baby one.”

  “And after that she’s going on to Gilden, to meet me there,” Raffa said loudly, with a pointed glance at Kuma.

  “In that case, you’ll stop home in between,” Haddie declared, “if only for a night.” She stared first at Kuma and then at Raffa, as if daring them to argue with her.

  Raffa wanted Kuma to join him sooner rather than later, but he said nothing. It was up to her to
decide. Besides, after the way he had encouraged her to think about her family, and after all the kindness they had shown him, he could hardly object.

  Haddie gave Kuma a quick hug and released her with a smack to her bottom. Then she began scurrying from cupboard to table.

  “Neither of you is setting a foot outside this door,” she said, “until I pack a full tucker for you.”

  To Raffa’s relief, Echo returned from hunting in time to board the wagon with him. Elson made sure to hail several neighbors as he drove out of the settlement with Raffa in plain sight on the wagon seat.

  “There,” he said. “Now word is sure to get back to Bantan that you were seen leaving.”

  As they rode, they talked about the Chancellor and her allies. “What could they possibly be trying to accomplish?” Elson wondered.

  Raffa had had months to ponder that question, yet he had no answers. “I know that what happened last night was terrible,” he said slowly, “but there are so many animals in that compound. What you saw was only a tiny part of it. They’ve got to be planning something much bigger than the attack here.”

  His stomach tightened in anxiety. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that he didn’t actually need to know. That was part of the logic of his plot to free the animals. It didn’t matter what the Chancellor’s plan was: Releasing the animals would thwart it.

  Raffa had been to the shed compound twice. A sturdy fence topped with nails and broken glass surrounded it. The gate was guarded day and night, and since he and Kuma had managed to free Roo, it was sure to be even more heavily guarded now.

  As the wagon bumped along through the cold, damp spring evening, Raffa’s doubts began to grow. If making a good plan was hard, carrying it out was a thousand times harder. And the closer he got to Gilden, the more impossible his task appeared.

  In the Eastern Woodlands, a little farther than halfway to the pother settlement, Elson turned the wagon off the road and followed a smaller track. It ended in a clearing just large enough to turn the horses. In the moonlight, Raffa saw a tiny cabin, and as he jumped down from the wagon seat, he could hear the gurgle of a stream.

  “Wayfarer shelter,” Elson said. “I’ll be easier in mind if you stay the night here. When you go back to the main trail, keep heading north. When it forks, go left for the ferry, right for the pother settlement.”

  The ride had saved Raffa several hours of walking. If he left here at daybirth, he would reach home by late afternoon.

  Inside the cabin there was a rough bunk and a small fireplace with wood already laid. Elson lingered in the doorway.

  “I’m sorry again that I couldn’t do better to convince Bantan and the other doubters,” he said.

  Raffa was silent for a moment. “You believed us,” he said. “That means . . . more than I could ever say.”

  He’d been a stranger to Elson—a kiddler with an outlandish story. Elson might have doubted him at first, but not anymore, and his trust was a gift without price for Raffa.

  Elson held up his hand, and Raffa matched palms with him. “Truth loves the light, Raffa,” Elson said. “It never stays buried forever. Bantan and the rest will see it soon enough. You’ll always be welcome in our home.”

  “Thank you,” Raffa whispered, “for everything.”

  The next morning was misty and gray. Raffa rose eagerly. This was the day he would see his parents again!

  He cleaned the ashes from the little fireplace, then gathered wood and laid it for the next wayfarer. In the packet of food Haddie had given him was a corn cake folded around a scrape of butter, which he ate as he walked.

  The road wound through forest and brush, and Raffa normally would have been on the lookout for botanicals. Today, though, keen to reach home, he alternated between trotting and a fast walk. His quick pace joggled the perch necklace, and Echo occasionally clicked in irritation.

  Raffa left the road well before it reached the edge of the woodlands. His home lay just outside the pother settlement; Mohan and Salima had built on a patch of land big enough for an extensive garden.

  Mindful of the guards at Kuma’s settlement, Raffa pulled out the perch necklace and blew on Echo’s whiskers. “Echo, I’m sorry to have to wake you now. I need you to fly ahead again, and see if anyone’s there.”

  The bat shifted a little on the perch but otherwise did not respond. Raffa grinned. Echo was feigning sleep, and Raffa knew him well enough not to be fooled.

  “Please, Echo? I just need your help to get to the cabin. Then you can go back to sleep, and I won’t bother you again the whole day.”

  Still no response.

  “I’ll catch you a beetle tonight. Or a spider.”

  Echo opened his eyes. “Beetle,” he said.

  “Okay, a beetle.”

  “Two. Big two.”

  Raffa laughed. “Two big beetles, fair enough. The house is that way, toward daybirth. Just circle it once and come back.”

  Echo returned in due time. “Man one. Woman one,” he said.

  “My parents, Echo? You remember my parents, right?”

  “Not Da. Not Mam. House no house.”

  Echo seemed to be talking wobbledywump. Raffa tried to make sense of the bat’s report. “Guards, Echo? Like in Gilden—the humans at the Garrison?”

  “Guards! Raffa good!”

  At least that much was clear. Raffa had to slip into the cabin without the guards noticing. He planned a route in his head. He’d go through the garden, so he could duck between the waist-high terraced beds to stay out of sight. It boosted his confidence to know the landscape so well, in sharp contrast to his wanderings of the past months.

  The garden backed onto a slight rise that blocked the cabin from view. Raffa crept up the rise, then waited as Echo flew off again and returned to report that the guards were together in the lane at the front.

  “Echo good,” Raffa said, his voice low. “Tell me if they start to come this way.”

  He dashed to the nearest terraced bed and dropped down behind it. Then he crawled to the corner so he could take a peek.

  A shock wave jolted him.

  House no house.

  A blackened, charred pile.

  The cabin was burned to the ground.

  Trembling, Raffa drew back and almost collapsed against the stone wall of the bed. His stomach rumbled ominously; he held his breath to keep from getting sick.

  When had it happened? How had the fire started? And most important, where were Da and Mam? Where would they have gone when they fled the fire? He flatly refused to countenance any outcome other than their escape.

  The only home he had ever known.

  Gone.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Images streamed through Raffa’s mind. The main room, with its big, solid worktable and benches. The fireplace flanked by two chairs and Raffa’s stool. The sleeping alcoves: the big one for his parents, across from his own corner pallet. The nicks on either side of the back-door frame, measuring his growth and also Garith’s, Garith always the taller.

  The utensils and implements for apothecary work, each with its place on a pegged board, so familiar that he could tell at a glance when one was missing. Herbs drying in bunches, hung from the ceiling. The small mirror on the shelf by the door, his reflection wavy in its warped glass.

  The cabin had been a place of work and sleep, laughter and arguments, mealtimes and play. There was nothing special about it—except that it was his.

  With those memories so real upon solid, Raffa had to peer around the edge of the bed once more, as if the house might suddenly reappear. But the black heap was still there, and he lost his breath again.

  The ruins were no longer smoldering, although the smell of smoke still tainted the air. A few days ago at most, then.

  I should go through the rubble, he thought, and wondered if he could face seeing the damage and destruction up close.

  The decision was taken away from him. Echo landed on his sleeve.

  “Guards c
ome,” Echo said. He flitted to the perch necklace.

  Raffa forced himself to his feet and staggered into the woods.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  GET to Gilden. Find Mam and Da. Destroy the vine stock. Cure and free the animals.

  Those phrases repeated themselves in his head until they had no meaning; they were but the rhythm to which he moved his feet. He walked for hours, well into darkness. The next morning he awoke before daybirth to find himself lying beneath a tree trunk that was partly propped up by a boulder.

  Later, he would remember almost nothing of that part of the journey, and would realize that he had been in a state of shock, his body numb, his mind all but empty. If it hadn’t been for Echo, he wouldn’t have thought to eat. Returning to the perch after his night of hunting, Echo spoke in what for him was a firm voice.

  “Raffa no good. Eat.”

  The bat was right. Raffa found some dried apple slices in Haddie’s packet. They brought a little strength and feeling back to his limbs as he ate them on his way to the ferry landing.

  The traffic grew heavier the closer he got to the landing. Soon the road opened out to the landing area. Mounted on a stout wooden post at the side of the road was a large placard.

  On the placard were three drawings: his own likeness and those of Kuma and Garith!

  MISSING, the sign read. IF FOUND OR SIGHTED, REPORT TO GUARDS.

  Raffa gasped. He stepped to the side of the road and pulled his hood further forward. His pulse pounding, he glanced around wildly to see if anyone was staring at him. How long would it take for someone to realize that it was his face on the placard?

  He found himself wishing there were such a thing as an infusion for invisibility—and was instantly disgusted with himself. That he, a serious apothecary, could even think such a thing. It was the worst kind of yearning!

  But the thought gave him an idea so rash that he began moving before he could change his mind. He walked straight up to the placard and leaned against the post, as if he were waiting for someone. The drawing of his face was right above him!

  Raffa hoped with all his might that the ploy would work: Surely no one would expect a fugitive to stand under his very likeness.